Which HR processes should you document first?

Document first the HR processes where a mistake costs the most, where several people have to hand work to each other, and where only one person knows how it is done. For most growing businesses that means joining, attendance and leave, the monthly payroll input, probation and confirmation, and exit. Write each as a one-page description that someone new could follow, then improve it as you learn.

It is tempting to document everything at once. That produces a folder nobody opens. Choosing a handful and writing them well gives you something people use. If you are still deciding what to fix before you write anything, which HR process to fix first covers how to choose by pain; this article assumes you have decided to write things down and need an order.

• What does a mistake cost? Money, a missed obligation, a lost employee or a damaged relationship.
• How many hands does it pass through? The more handoffs, the more it needs a written route.
• Who holds the knowledge? If one person leaves or is absent, can someone else do it?
• How often does it happen? A weekly process earns documentation sooner than a yearly one.

Score each process low, medium or high on the four questions. The ones with the most highs go first.

1. 1

   Joining

   Offer to first day to first month. It is where early exits begin and where documents and access are easily missed. See the joining checklist.

2. 2

   Attendance and leave

   Because it feeds pay. Who records, who approves, when it closes and how corrections work. See missed punches and regularisation.

3. 3

   Monthly payroll input

   The cut-offs, who sends what and who signs off. A written calendar prevents the monthly scramble. See closing the payroll month.

4. 4

   Probation and confirmation

   So no confirmation date is missed and the decision rests on recorded evidence.

5. 5

   Exit

   Resignation to final settlement, with handover and access removal. See the offboarding checklist.

• Purpose and trigger: what the process is for and what starts it.
• Steps in order: who does each step and by when.
• Records: what is written down and where it is kept.
• Approvals: who decides and what they check.
• Exceptions: what to do when the normal route does not fit.
• Owner and date: who keeps it current and when it was last reviewed.

Start by asking the person who does the work to walk you through it, not by copying a template. Write down what they actually do, then agree with the manager what should change. A document that describes a process nobody follows will be ignored.

Give the page to someone who has not done the job and ask them to run through it. Every question they ask is a gap in the document. Fix it and test again. Do this before you circulate anything to the team.

• Keep them in one shared place everyone can find, and remove old copies.
• Name an owner for each and a review date, at least once a year.
• Link them from the handbook and from the checklists managers use. The handbook points to the detail.
• Update the document the same week a process changes, and say what changed.

Once your first processes are written and tested, the next step is a review of how they run together. What an HR process audit checks describes that.